Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 266 ｜ New Age vs. Christianity, Part 1 ｜ Guest： Steven Bancarz

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable.

00:00:12.800 So this is part one of a two-part interview that I am doing with Christian apologist Stephen

00:00:19.640 Bancars.

00:00:20.820 He left the New Age a few years ago after making a lot of money in the New Age industry

00:00:25.360 and came to Christ and now has spent the past few years of his life being an apologist for

00:00:32.700 Christian theology, for biblical theology, and helping people recognize the deceit of 0.87

00:00:38.540 the New Age and specifically how the New Age is unfortunately infiltrating the church.

00:00:44.140 So that's what we're going to talk about.

00:00:46.120 This turned out to be such an awesome and such a wonderful and long conversation that we ended

00:00:54.140 up splitting it into two separate episodes, but both parts of the conversation are equally

00:00:59.840 powerful.

00:01:00.560 So after you listen to part one, wait for part two to come out and make sure that you listen

00:01:04.800 to that as well.

00:01:06.060 Okay, without further ado, here is Stephen Bancars.

00:01:08.940 Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.

00:01:11.280 Thank you for having me.

00:01:12.280 I'm sure that a lot of people who listen to this podcast might follow you as well and maybe

00:01:16.600 even know your story.

00:01:17.820 But for those who don't know, can you tell them who you are and what you do?

00:01:21.460 Yeah, so I came out of the New Age movement back in fall of 2015 and prior to that, my

00:01:29.240 career, my job was to be a New Age writer, a New Age author online and I had really one

00:01:35.400 of the largest New Age websites in the world, averaging hundreds of thousands of views a day

00:01:39.800 and I was a lead author for a while on the largest New Age website in the world and it was

00:01:46.560 making me $40,000, $50,000 a month in ad revenue.

00:01:50.300 And as a 21-year-old, 22-year-old, you know, you think you're living the dream and by worldly

00:01:55.300 standards, you kind of are.

00:01:56.780 Right.

00:01:57.160 But from a spiritual perspective, I thought this was God blessing me.

00:02:00.380 This was the universe, my metaphor for God at the time, blessing me for waking humanity

00:02:04.840 up to a higher state of consciousness and helping, you know, raise the vibration of the

00:02:09.060 planet.

00:02:09.340 I thought it was helping further human evolution by promoting this kind of teaching, which we'll

00:02:16.080 get into a little bit later.

00:02:17.140 But yeah, I came from a Christian background.

00:02:19.820 I was born and raised in a Christian household, homeschooled under a Christian curriculum, went 0.91

00:02:24.160 to Christian private school.

00:02:26.500 When I was in high school, obviously sin got the better of me and I just fell off the deep

00:02:30.440 end.

00:02:30.940 But the topic of aliens came to me when I was in high school.

00:02:34.900 I was watching a program called Ancient Aliens on the History Channel, and they were presenting

00:02:39.640 information that seemed to go against the biblical world you had been raised with.

00:02:44.300 I couldn't fit it into the Genesis creation narrative.

00:02:48.220 If we really have been visited by extraterrestrials from other star systems for thousands of years,

00:02:54.560 what does that say about the exclusivity of Christ and the cross?

00:02:59.820 If there's 30,000 intelligent species that live in our galaxy alone, did Christ have to go

00:03:04.420 and incarnate and die on a cross on every single planet?

00:03:07.220 On what day did God say, let there be aliens?

00:03:09.800 So this seemed to make me think that Christianity was just one piece of the puzzle instead of

00:03:15.940 being the entire picture.

00:03:17.700 And a lot of the people on this program, Ancient Aliens, they are New Age teachers, people like

00:03:22.680 Dr. Stephen Greer, people like David Wilcock.

00:03:25.740 And so I started to get into some of their material.

00:03:27.540 It's kind of a package deal.

00:03:29.140 And they were the only ones who were really giving me answers to the questions I had.

00:03:32.260 I hadn't seen these topics addressed by Christians.

00:03:34.900 They certainly aren't talked about in the church.

00:03:36.800 And so I thought the New Age interpretation of ET phenomenon, of abduction reports, I thought

00:03:41.920 that was the only game in town.

00:03:44.060 And so this kind of led me down a rabbit hole where now I'm practicing meditation.

00:03:48.600 I'm getting my hands on contact material that these ETs are apparently giving mankind.

00:03:52.700 It sounds crazy, but this is what happens in the New Age movement.

00:03:54.860 And I'm practicing out-of-body experiences, waking up outside of my body, lucid dreaming,

00:04:01.840 meditation, psychedelic drugs.

00:04:05.600 And my goal is to try and figure out what is all this and how does Christ fit into this?

00:04:10.120 And so I had a completely redefined and re-understood version of Jesus.

00:04:14.300 And every New Age teacher does.

00:04:16.520 Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, they all twist Christ to fit some New Age paradigm.

00:04:21.020 But I got neck deep in this stuff, created a Facebook page in 2012 called Spirit, Science, and Metaphysics.

00:04:27.820 It grew to over half a million by the time of January 2014.

00:04:31.500 Then I launched my website, and that's when I started experiencing success in this area as a teacher.

00:04:38.720 Had an encounter with Christ in September of 2015 is when I just fell at the feet of Christ in a moment of brokenness.

00:04:48.960 Because I bottomed out emotionally, spiritually, mentally, you know, I was poor in spirit.

00:04:55.300 I had nothing to show for my life.

00:04:59.300 Internally, externally, I had everything I wanted.

00:05:02.100 Living in a 4,000 square foot house as a 22-year-old, being your own boss.

00:05:06.020 Like, from the outside looking in, I had everything.

00:05:09.140 I was depraved.

00:05:11.020 You know, in Ephesians it says, you were darkness, and then you were light.

00:05:14.660 It's not that you have darkness in you, it's that you are darkness.

00:05:17.200 Like, your heart is desperately wicked and deceitful.

00:05:20.820 And I came to terms with that, and I really saw, upon confessing sin to people in my life, that ended up hurting them.

00:05:27.700 The confession hurt them.

00:05:29.100 That's when I was like, I knew I needed to be fixed, but I also knew I had wronged God.

00:05:34.280 That I had sinned against the God I knew existed but had been suppressing.

00:05:38.280 Right?

00:05:38.640 And so our problem isn't that we don't know who God is.

00:05:42.940 Our problem is we know God but don't acknowledge Him.

00:05:45.280 Right?

00:05:46.280 That's Romans 1 because to get closer to God is to get closer to the guilt and shame that remains in our conscience, the skeletons in our closet, basically.

00:05:55.460 So I finally just laid at all the feet of Christ, wept at His feet.

00:06:00.120 I'm sorry, whoever you are.

00:06:01.840 I want all of you.

00:06:02.820 I'm all in with you.

00:06:04.060 And He revealed Himself to me.

00:06:05.820 Spiritually, He showed up, not physically, not visibly, but His presence just overwhelmed me, and I couldn't stand up, and His presence started to fill me.

00:06:16.740 It was in front of me, but it was also within me and around me.

00:06:21.520 And I got born again.

00:06:22.820 I was experiencing what it is and what it means to be born again.

00:06:25.420 You know, John chapter 3, unless you're born of the Spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.

00:06:30.800 And that is when, for about five minutes, I was just getting wrecked, getting wrecked by the presence of Jesus, the manifest, spiritual, literal presence of Jesus.

00:06:42.340 And I went back inside my house after, and I was like, I'm wrong.

00:06:46.380 I was wrong about everything.

00:06:47.480 This is so simple.

00:06:48.400 Jesus is Lord.

00:06:49.140 He's the Son of God.

00:06:50.400 It's not some complex, mystical thing.

00:06:52.840 And I started to see all these connections that I hadn't been able to see before, because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth.

00:06:59.040 He comes and lives inside of you upon the hearing with faith.

00:07:01.860 When you repent and put your faith in Christ, the Spirit comes and indwells you, and He leads us into all truth.

00:07:06.400 He guides us.

00:07:06.960 He teaches us, even if we don't have a chapter and verse, He will lead us and direct us toward the conclusion of that chapter and verse until we get there, if that makes sense.

00:07:16.860 And so, I repented.

00:07:19.100 A few days later, I went online, and I was like, I'm sorry, guys.

00:07:22.100 I've been wrong.

00:07:23.000 I've been leading you all astray.

00:07:24.020 These practices are wrong.

00:07:25.840 They're, at the very best, useless, at the worst, demonic, and they're all set up to keep you away from salvation in Christ.

00:07:32.520 And for the last four and a half years, I've been in full-time apologetics ministry.

00:07:38.180 And, yeah, that's my testimony in a nutshell.

00:07:41.180 And it's good to be in the truth.

00:07:43.960 Yeah.

00:07:44.440 What was the tipping point for you that made you look around and say, hang on just a second, everything that I have believed and taught and gotten money from is wrong?

00:07:57.040 What kind of pushed you, obviously, the Holy Spirit, but was there an event or something that happened that pushed you to repentance?

00:08:05.700 Yeah.

00:08:06.340 What it was was recognizing the fruitlessness and futility of the practices, the philosophy, and the worldview I had been implementing into my life insofar as they gave me actually zero freedom over my mind, my emotions, my will.

00:08:24.500 I was a slave to sin.

00:08:25.500 The Bible says whoever commits sin is a slave to sin.

00:08:28.900 I was a sin slave.

00:08:30.240 And I felt like I couldn't control myself.

00:08:31.840 I couldn't help it.

00:08:33.540 My heart was just busted up and broken from my past, and it desired things it shouldn't desire.

00:08:38.480 You know, Jesus says adulterous thoughts, murderers, thefts, these things come out of the heart and defile a person.

00:08:43.460 The problem is we need a heart transplant.

00:08:45.040 And basically, I was realizing my worldview could not effectively act as a remedy for my emotional brokenness and my depravity, my sinful depravity.

00:08:58.940 And basically, I had to confess to a person in my life who I was with at the time that I'd been living a double life behind their back, essentially.

00:09:07.060 And I confessed this, and it wrecked her.

00:09:11.160 Obviously, it wrecked me that I had wrecked her.

00:09:13.780 And she was close to my mom.

00:09:15.640 So we both went back to my parents' house.

00:09:17.840 And my mom was totally, like, all put together and relaxed because she's like, this is perfect timing.

00:09:22.920 She's like, I've been praying for this kind of moment for years.

00:09:26.240 So she was like, are you guys ready to give your life to the Lord yet?

00:09:29.880 And she's, like, the most solid Christian I even know I've ever met in my life.

00:09:36.480 And I was like, yeah, you know what?

00:09:38.740 I'm going to give my life to Christ.

00:09:40.240 So I said a prayer of salvation, which to me meant I'm going to allow you, Jesus, to invade my life as you really are.

00:09:48.640 I don't really know what it means to trust in you for my salvation.

00:09:51.320 I didn't understand the atonement.

00:09:54.220 I don't believe I got born again in that moment.

00:09:57.060 But that was when I was going to say to Jesus, and I did say to Jesus, I'm not going to fit you into this New Age paradigm anymore.

00:10:02.460 I'm going to be self-honest in my exploration of you.

00:10:05.540 And then two weeks later passed after I said that prayer of salvation.

00:10:08.480 I'm still living in sin, and I don't have all the pieces together yet.

00:10:11.940 And then two weeks later passed, and that's when I had to confess another round of sin that was worse than the first.

00:10:17.600 And that's when I realized I'm wicked, I'm depraved, I'm broken, and I need forgiveness.

00:10:24.480 I don't just need to be fixed internally.

00:10:26.180 I need forgiveness from God for sinning against the living God.

00:10:30.260 And, yeah, that was what led to that moment when I went outside and fell at his feet and just wept.

00:10:38.240 And, yeah, he's faithful.

00:10:40.660 You know, he says all who seek will find.

00:10:42.480 Whoever knocks the door will be open to them.

00:10:44.700 And he says I by no means will turn away those who come to me.

00:10:47.340 Steven, can you tell us what the New Age is?

00:11:00.980 I know it's, you know, a little bit of an amorphous term that can encompass a lot of different things.

00:11:07.200 But it's really important to me that my audience can kind of recognize some of the aspects of it, not just the extraterrestrial things, which may be obvious to a lot of Christians.

00:11:17.300 But talk about just what the New Age philosophy is and maybe even how it manifests itself in ways that Christians might not recognize.

00:11:25.980 Right.

00:11:26.600 So when we talk about the New Age movement or New Age spirituality, that's really an umbrella term.

00:11:32.040 It's a little bit nebulous, but it's kind of it refers to this bucket of worldview distinctives and bucket of practices that go under this title.

00:11:41.740 But really, they draw a little bit from Buddhism, a little bit from Eastern mysticism, a little bit from Gnosticism and esoteric philosophy from the late 1800s, from theosophy, Helena Blavatsky's school of thought.

00:11:55.960 As she started, it draws a little bit from the kind of thing you would hear Ram Dass talk about back in his heyday, his glory days.

00:12:03.080 And so and Aleister Crowley a little bit as well.

00:12:05.840 But what we're talking about essentially is a worldview that, for one, occupies, I would say, I would say it's the biggest threat to the church today.

00:12:16.820 It's the biggest threat to Christians today is the New Age movement. 1.00

00:12:20.200 You have 27 percent of the American population who identify as spiritual but not religious, according to a Pew study center, Pew research, Pew study.

00:12:30.840 And what was interesting is that there was a study released by Pew in October of 2018.

00:12:38.980 And what they found was that 61 percent of the American population holds at least one New Age belief.

00:12:45.880 Wow.

00:12:46.100 And they only tested for four beliefs.

00:12:48.640 They only tested for the belief that psychics offer some kind of reliable insight into the future.

00:12:54.200 The belief that there's spiritual energy within physical, material things, the belief in astrology, and the belief in reincarnation.

00:13:03.680 Right.

00:13:04.000 And 60 it was 62 percent, sorry, of the American population.

00:13:07.400 But 61 percent of professing Christians also held to at least one of these beliefs.

00:13:12.560 They didn't test for beliefs like who believes that, you know, man is intrinsically divine.

00:13:18.480 Who believes that meditation and yoga are helpful spiritual practices, not just physical practices.

00:13:23.720 Who believes in karma.

00:13:25.700 Who believes that the pineal gland has some kind of relationship to one's spirituality.

00:13:30.260 If you were to test for all these beliefs as well, in addition to those four, I would say you're looking at 80 to 90 percent.

00:13:35.440 Wow.

00:13:36.180 Of the American population holds to some kind of New Age belief.

00:13:38.800 And this is being taught by Russell Brandt, Jim Carrey, Ellen DeGeneres in varying degrees, Oprah Winfrey has been popularizing this stuff like crazy.

00:13:48.920 And so it's really coming down from the highest levels of social influence.

00:13:52.300 And it's no longer just some kind of fringe topic on the outskirts of society where you've got some hippies in Sedona, Arizona.

00:13:59.900 Right.

00:14:00.120 But dropping acid, now you have some of the best-selling authors of all time, the best-selling book series of all time, like Conversations with God, for example.

00:14:10.340 Our New Age, I was so surprised to see Marianne Williamson take a run at things because I'm thinking this is a New Age teacher I used to listen to.

00:14:18.120 Have you heard what she has to say about Christ?

00:14:20.400 She believes that Christ is something within man.

00:14:22.440 She believes that she is Christ.

00:14:24.160 She believes that when she's not acting fearfully, she is Christ.

00:14:27.040 Christ is what remains when everything else dissipates.

00:14:30.180 Every egoic self-deception about being an individual person and she taps into unity consciousness, we're all one, all is God, God is all.

00:14:38.420 That's when I'm Christ.

00:14:39.720 Right.

00:14:39.920 And so that's one of the distinctives I want to talk about is man's ontology.

00:14:44.920 This is a really, really big issue and it's helpful for Christians to know this one thing in particular, is that the New Age movement would equivocate God and man.

00:14:54.520 They would say God and man share ontology.

00:14:57.720 They share nature, essence, and substance because they believe in pantheism.

00:15:02.620 So they believe that the universe is divine.

00:15:04.400 Pan means all, theism comes from the Greek word deos, which means God.

00:15:08.000 All is God.

00:15:09.140 That is the theism and the philosophy of New Age spirituality.

00:15:13.480 Some would say God is also transcendent and beyond space and time, in which case you have panentheism, where the universe is God, but God also exists beyond the universe in some sense.

00:15:22.000 And so I was a panentheist.

00:15:25.040 But the point is, when you redefine God to be the substance of reality and the very essence and core nature of every molecule, that necessarily means that that's also my identity and my core substance and my core nature.

00:15:38.920 Man is God and God is man.

00:15:40.980 Right.

00:15:41.120 And this is how they understand Jesus to be someone who self-discovered his own intrinsic deity, his intrinsic divinity.

00:15:48.120 And he has just as much deity as we do and just as much as the Pharisees did.

00:15:52.080 They just weren't aware of it yet.

00:15:53.780 And so Jesus is someone who was enlightened and self-awoke to his true ontology and lived from that state of mind.

00:16:02.560 And that there's ultimately one of us here where all the creator experiencing itself from a different point of view.

00:16:08.240 But the Bible says things very clearly, like in Psalm 9, verse 20, put fear in them.

00:16:12.780 Oh, Lord, let the nations know they are but men.

00:16:16.120 Isaiah 31, 3 is a big verse.

00:16:18.480 The Egyptians are man and not God. 1.00

00:16:21.020 Their horses are flesh and not spirit.

00:16:22.940 You have the king of Tyre and Ezekiel 28, the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14 and King Herod in Acts 12.

00:16:32.000 Those are the only three people in scripture, aside from Jesus, who could claim deity because he is true deity.

00:16:38.280 He's God by nature.

00:16:39.680 But when you have mere men claiming that they're God or likening themselves to God or a God,

00:16:45.000 they were all issued capital punishment from Yahweh himself.

00:16:47.900 So the biblical precedent for divinity claimers is, you know, the death penalty. 0.99

00:16:54.400 And we'd expect to see a better precedent if God wanted us walking around thinking, oh, everything's God.

00:16:58.520 We're all God by nature.

00:17:00.380 Another big thing that the New Age movement will teach and promote is something we could call universalism.

00:17:06.660 That all paths ultimately lead back to heaven or the spirit world, as they'll call it.

00:17:12.680 But all roads lead to Rome.

00:17:14.720 Essentially, it doesn't really matter which path you take, which religious path you take, because the destination is the exact same.

00:17:21.660 And they believe that the spirit world is not heaven.

00:17:24.960 It's kind of like this neutral, ethereal realm where you go, you do a life review, you hang out with your spirit guides, you get put into like a soul group where you're with other souls who are around your same level of development.

00:17:38.620 And maybe you'll take some classes and so forth in the spirit world before you choose your next incarnation and come back to earth,

00:17:45.980 where you plan your life in advance and you reincarnate so you can learn the lessons that you need to learn in the next life for the sake of your soul's development.

00:17:53.720 And keep in mind, too, this sounds crazy.

00:17:55.820 This might sound like complete, you know, wankery to some of your audience.

00:17:59.780 But this is coming from books that have sold millions of copies.

00:18:03.080 The Destiny of Souls, Journey of Souls, Dr. Michael Newton, we're talking about, you know, Dr. Jim Tucker.

00:18:08.820 However, this stuff is promoted all over the place, and it's very, very prevalent and prominent in New Age spirituality.

00:18:15.400 And the Bible says in Hebrews 9.27, it's been appointed unto man to live once, and after that comes the judgment.

00:18:23.240 Reincarnation's impossible, biblically.

00:18:25.560 We're given one chance, and Jesus Christ paid our penalty in full on the cross, so there's nothing, there's no karma we have to alleviate in the next life.

00:18:33.900 If Jesus paid everything in full, we have one shot at this life, and the Bible's very clear about that.

00:18:39.200 But they would teach that we all go back to this neutral spirit world, and we kind of, like, hang out for a little bit, and then choose our next incarnation.

00:18:46.040 It's this never-ending cycle until we work our way up this scale of enlightenment and soul development, until we finally bypass the need to reincarnate.

00:18:54.800 And then we can just do work teaching other souls in the spirit world as we work our way up back to full and true unity with the Creator.

00:19:01.900 Another thing that people would, it would be helpful for people to know is that they would treat all religions as being equally valid as one another.

00:19:09.600 So this would be called religious pluralism, where there's really no difference in the weight between the worldview claims that Islam would make versus Buddhism versus Christianity, for example.

00:19:22.420 All religions are equally valid and equally true.

00:19:25.980 And you see this kind of rhetoric in our culture all the time now, where it's apparently, like, politically incorrect to imply, to let alone say, but to merely imply someone's view about God is wrong.

00:19:35.900 Or their spirituality is wrong, the New Age movement would say they're all equally valid, they all lead us to the same destination.

00:19:42.160 There's a lot of different things the New Age talks about, but if people could understand that's just this one point, that man is not God by nature, there's a distinction between man and God, there's a creator-creation distinction,

00:19:53.960 that we're ontologically separated from God and we're relationally separated from God through sin.

00:19:59.820 That needs to be our starting point, ontological and relational separation from God, and therefore we need a mediator.

00:20:05.900 Therefore, we need someone to reconcile us.

00:20:08.680 Versus, if you put man in God's place, he can have relationship with God in and of himself, because he's ultimately deity by nature.

00:20:17.600 God is a presence or a force that exists within him, and that's really what the New Age worldview hinges upon, is the deity of man.

00:20:25.520 Which goes back to Genesis 3, by the way, where Satan promises Eve that through special knowledge, in this case, special knowledge of self, special knowledge of your true nature, you can become as God.

00:20:35.900 Or as the gods, it's the same lie, just repackaged and wrapped up in a bow of political correctness now.

00:20:43.220 Right. Oh, gosh, I have so many questions to ask you.

00:20:46.680 One thing that I want to point out, going back to what you said a few minutes ago about the importance in the New Age of kind of self-discovery, this journey to figure out who you really are and to manifest this inner power.

00:20:59.680 Yes, we see it among those New Age teachers that maybe people would be able to point out, especially Christians like Marianne Williamson and things like that.

00:21:07.920 But I also think it's important to point out that this manifests itself in a lot more subtle ways that are or seem vaguely Christian, that I think a lot of young Christian women are attracted to.

00:21:19.920 And it comes in the form of this kind of self-love world and books dedicated to self-discovery and self-fulfillment that sound vaguely biblical.

00:21:29.900 You know, they start with the idea, you know, that God loves you and maybe you're made in the image of God and therefore you have purpose, which of course is true.

00:21:37.140 But then it says in order to become more spiritual, in order to become more successful, you need to go deeper and deeper inward and to find, you know, that inner goddess who you really are.

00:21:48.860 If it weren't for societal expectations, if it weren't for, you know, religious standards, if it weren't for all of these things and institutions that are holding you back, who you are deep down on the inside is perfect.

00:22:00.360 And once you find her, once you learn who she is through different personality tests or whatever, once you learn to love that perfect goddess deep down inside, then you will be fulfilled.

00:22:11.780 It is not presented in a new age way.

00:22:14.780 It's presented in a more practical, even entrepreneurial way or self-help way.

00:22:20.960 And I think it's important, too, for women to realize that that is a part of new age teaching and mystical, unchristian, unbiblical teaching as well.

00:22:31.480 Would you agree?

00:22:32.760 I would.

00:22:33.640 I would say I would agree primarily because it has to do with there being something intrinsically good that's hidden and embedded within you and your life's purpose.

00:22:44.060 And what's going to launch you into success is you tapping into that and drawing it out, whether it's just some kind of sovereign power that you carry within yourself, a higher self.

00:22:54.140 They might use that kind of vernacular, your higher self, your real self, your true self.

00:23:01.240 They'll usually sprinkle in cliches about the universe loving you.

00:23:05.120 The universe has got your back.

00:23:07.520 They speak about providence as though it's almost like some kind of deity.

00:23:11.340 And they usually kind of weave this into their narrative.

00:23:15.320 But I would say it's completely antithetical to the biblical worldview.

00:23:18.300 And it's much more comparable to new age spirituality, which emphasizes there really is something intrinsically good, deeply embedded within man.

00:23:27.940 And Jesus tells us the exact opposite.

00:23:30.440 You know, Matthew chapter five tells you the path to live the life God created you to live.

00:23:36.320 It's to take really the exact opposite route.

00:23:39.420 Blessed are the poor in spirit.

00:23:41.800 Right.

00:23:42.240 Blessed are those who mourn.

00:23:44.460 Blessed are the meek. 1.00

00:23:45.560 Right.

00:23:45.700 What does it mean to be poor in spirit?

00:23:48.060 Right.

00:23:48.920 Blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall see God.

00:23:50.720 To be poor in spirit means to admit to yourself that you're spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically bankrupt.

00:23:57.140 You're just completely devoid of goodness on those levels.

00:24:03.200 And that's a blow to a lot of people's egos.

00:24:05.740 But you can't get away from that in scripture.

00:24:08.320 We're alienated from the life of God.

00:24:10.300 You know, Colossians 121.

00:24:11.860 We're dead in trespasses and sins.

00:24:14.080 Ephesians 2.

00:24:15.220 The heart is desperately wicked.

00:24:16.900 You know, Jeremiah 17.

00:24:18.360 Now, that doesn't mean that we're not made in God's image.

00:24:20.580 It doesn't mean we don't have intrinsic value and intrinsic worth.

00:24:23.340 To God, we do.

00:24:24.580 And that was made apparent when he paid a high price in Christ to reconcile us unto himself.

00:24:30.100 We're precious to God.

00:24:31.000 We have value to God.

00:24:31.840 But if we're looking to something in ourselves to be our source of redemption and our source of life purpose, nobody lets us down more than us.

00:24:42.760 Nobody lies to us more than us.

00:24:45.140 We're the problem.

00:24:47.100 And that's what the Christian world view makes very plain and clear.

00:24:49.920 And it's so liberating when you can realize my goal in this life is not to be good.

00:24:55.300 There's one good who's God.

00:24:57.640 There's one person who is morally perfect, who's Jesus.

00:25:01.940 My goal is to partner with him.

00:25:04.280 Right?

00:25:04.700 It's not about me and my works and my spiritual level.

00:25:09.380 It's about Jesus and his works and who he is spiritually.

00:25:13.240 And I just partner with him.

00:25:14.400 I throw myself onto him in dependency.

00:25:16.640 Versus you become self-dependent.

00:25:18.900 You become self-sufficient.

00:25:22.200 And it's a trap.

00:25:23.460 It just inflates your ego.

00:25:24.560 It's premised on a false ontology about who you truly are.

00:25:29.740 And it's okay to admit that, you know, you're not everything you want to be.

00:25:34.040 We're all not.

00:25:34.620 That's the purpose of the cross.

00:25:36.680 Yep.

00:25:37.140 Jesus paid the price for our mistakes, for our deficiencies.

00:25:41.340 And we're to partner with him for the forgiveness of sins.

00:25:44.580 And so we can actually be indwelt by God instead of just pretending we are and be empowered to

00:25:50.740 live the life he created us for.

00:25:52.260 You said it best when you said that that is actually a freeing reality.

00:25:56.140 But if you only look at the new age, for example, or you just kind of look at some of the mantras

00:26:02.500 in a more superficial sense, those mantras and those principles sound freeing that, wow,

00:26:08.060 it's all up to me.

00:26:09.200 All I have to do is tap into this inner power and I can be successful.

00:26:13.380 All I have to do is depend on myself, love myself, be confident in what I can do, and

00:26:19.460 then I can find fulfillment.

00:26:21.200 And it feels and seems freeing at the time that it all depends on me, that it's within

00:26:25.820 my control.

00:26:26.360 We all have a sinful desire for control and really to be our own gods.

00:26:32.160 But the reality is, is that once you realize that you're not actually enough, that you're

00:26:37.400 not enough for yourself, that you've done all of the self-discovery, that you've done

00:26:40.840 all the self-fulfillment, you've repeated all the motivational mantras and done all the

00:26:45.180 10-step programs to finally become successful, and it's still not enough, you're still not

00:26:50.660 satisfied, you're still not fulfilled.

00:26:52.600 Then you realize that the so-called freedom of the new age and so-called, what I call the

00:26:57.900 cult of self-affirmation is actually very burdensome.

00:27:01.260 And the real freedom, the real good news is realizing that we're not enough, that you

00:27:07.000 don't have to be enough.

00:27:08.760 Your self-love doesn't have to be enough.

00:27:11.320 Your self-confidence and self-fulfillment, none of that has to be enough because it never

00:27:15.400 will be enough.

00:27:16.460 There is so much freedom and good news to be found in the reality that we are insufficient

00:27:21.800 and dependent on someone who has promised to be our sufficiency.

00:27:28.100 That's right.

00:27:28.880 And it's interesting because when you actually apply that kind of worldview to your life,

00:27:34.480 as you're describing and critiquing right now, that's basically what I lived from.

00:27:38.620 And there is so much pressure you put on yourself.

00:27:42.420 You're living under the weight of an expectation that you simply can't fulfill.

00:27:47.140 Right.

00:27:47.760 Right.

00:27:48.140 And it puts you in this hamster wheel of spiritual works.

00:27:51.960 Right.

00:27:52.320 And so when I would wake up in the morning as a new ager, I'm thinking, okay, I got to

00:27:56.120 say my positive affirmations and I got to say them out loud.

00:27:59.400 I should say them out loud because of the law of attraction and the universe is going to

00:28:03.540 bring into my reality that which is aligned with my dominant thoughts, words, and emotions.

00:28:07.800 So I got to make sure what's my mindset today?

00:28:10.960 Where are my emotions today?

00:28:12.220 Are they aligned with the destiny I'm trying to manifest and create in the material world?

00:28:15.820 If not, I got to do something to raise my vibration.

00:28:18.560 I should be meditating.

00:28:19.820 I got to make sure I'm meditating each day.

00:28:21.420 Got to make sure my chakras are cleaned.

00:28:23.200 Are my chakras cleaned?

00:28:24.020 Have I been doing some crystal work lately?

00:28:26.200 Have I been decalcifying my pineal gland so I can have better access to the things of

00:28:30.920 the spiritual?

00:28:31.980 So have I been taking the right supplements?

00:28:34.400 Have I been doing pineal gland detoxes?

00:28:36.580 Have I been trying to contact higher entities or my higher self?

00:28:46.160 Have I been, man, it was crazy because the amount of things you have to do as a new ager

00:28:55.900 compared to the amount of things you have to do as a Christian, right?

00:29:00.180 When your life is centered around you and your works and your level of spiritual advancement,

00:29:05.240 you can't do enough, right?

00:29:07.320 And that's why one of the mantras in the New Age movement is enlightenment is a destination.

00:29:11.880 Sorry, it's a journey.

00:29:12.760 It's not a destination.

00:29:14.460 It's like, well, it's a journey to where?

00:29:15.920 And when does the journey end?

00:29:16.980 And when have I done enough?

00:29:18.520 You know, versus Jesus on the cross, you know, it is finished.

00:29:22.580 Amen.

00:29:22.940 Okay, so I don't have to wake up each day and be mindful of, am I being positive enough?

00:29:27.440 Are my chakras clean enough?

00:29:28.980 Is my vibration high enough?

00:29:30.860 Have I meditated enough?

00:29:32.340 Have I forgiven people, you know, ancestors of mine from hundreds of years ago from some

00:29:38.160 sin of theirs that's causing me to have to live out the karma of their sins in the present

00:29:42.460 day?

00:29:42.680 All this weird stuff that keeps you focused on everything except I'm a sinner, right?

00:29:48.560 I'm a sinner and I need salvation.

00:29:50.140 And so when I came to Christ, I remember staring at my New Age bookshelf and I had just had all

00:29:54.700 these New Age books that I'd been reading and researching and trying to figure out all

00:29:58.220 the answers.

00:29:58.760 And I had peace for the first time because I knew the truth, right?

00:30:02.300 The Holy Spirit is self-validating.

00:30:05.720 He's self-affirming.

00:30:07.000 And when he lives inside of you, you have rest.

00:30:09.300 For the first time, Hebrews 4, God has permitted us to enter into the rest of Christ and we can

00:30:14.240 cease from our works even as God has ceased from his works, right?

00:30:18.620 And we have that in Christ, that Sabbath rest is in Christ.

00:30:23.100 And that was completely unique for me to feel rest and be like, I have the truth now.

00:30:27.520 Now it's just a matter of growing in the truth versus I'm on this never-ending pursuit of

00:30:31.760 self-empowerment and trying to figure things out just to stand before the judgment seat

00:30:37.040 of Christ one day.

00:30:38.180 Right.

00:30:38.620 And just to die and realize I haven't been self-honest with myself about God or about

00:30:44.080 the person of Jesus who has been unconsciously and continuously harassing my conscience my

00:30:50.900 entire life.

00:30:51.940 I've never followed up with that.

00:30:54.540 And so, yeah, the self-empowerment movement.

00:30:57.100 I believe that we should know who we are.

00:30:59.300 How do I actually feel?

00:31:00.440 How do I actually see the world?

00:31:02.780 We don't want our identities to be lost in our social group or peer network or in other

00:31:08.120 people's expectations and so forth.

00:31:09.620 Just have an authentic self-relationship.

00:31:11.520 That's important, even as a Christian.

00:31:13.760 But that's not the end game.

00:31:15.640 And people treat that as being the end game.

00:31:18.480 And, you know, it's going to leave you disappointed in the end.

00:31:20.760 It's going to leave you on this hamster wheel of spiritual works where you're always just

00:31:23.860 trying to improve, improve, improve, get more dialed in, more dialed in, premised on this

00:31:27.280 idea that you have the answers within yourself versus you don't.

00:31:30.540 Jesus is God's final answer.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 22, 2020

Ep 266 ｜ New Age vs. Christianity, Part 1 ｜ Guest： Steven Bancarz

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